Month: March 2007

We’ll be springing ahead three weeks earlier than usual this
year. Congress has extended daylight saving time because the
politicians say it will save energy. Rebecca Williams reports
critics are not so sure:

Transcript

We’ll be springing ahead three weeks earlier than usual this
year. Congress has extended daylight saving time because the
politicians say it will save energy. Rebecca Williams reports
critics are not so sure:

Fans of extending daylight-saving time say longer daylight hours
in the evenings will save energy.

But critics of the change say it might actually be a wash.

Ryan Kellogg is a researcher at the University of California
Energy Institute. He studied what happened when Australia
extended daylight saving time.

“They did experience decreased electricity use in the evening
hours when they had more natural light. But they also saw
increased use in the morning when people were waking up in the
dark. Those two effects canceled each other out so on net,
extending daylightn saving time didn’t save Australia any energy
at all.”

U.S. politicians have been predicting we could save the
equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day by extending daylight
saving time. But critics say that’s misleading because most power
plants don’t run on oil.

Related Links

A Honda FCX Concept and hydrogen refueling station. There is concern about the safety of handling hydrogen. (Photo courtesy of Honda)

Within the next few years, you might see a new type of car in dealer
showrooms… one that runs on hydrogen. Many engineers and car company
officials predict that hydrogen vehicles will replace gasoline power in
the next 10 to 15 years. But lots of people think hydrogen is too
explosive and wonder if a hydrogen-based economy will be safe.
Julie Grant reports:
http://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/grant3_030507.mp3

Transcript

Within the next few years, you might see a new type of car in dealer
showrooms… one that runs on hydrogen. Many engineers and car company
officials predict that hydrogen vehicles will replace gasoline power in
the next 10 to 15 years. But lots of people think hydrogen is too
explosive and wonder if a hydrogen-based economy will be safe.
Julie Grant reports:

Sales associate Chris Beckham hears a lot of concerns about the new
Honda fuel-cell car on display at a recent car show:

“I know a lot of people are kind of worried about the safety of the
hydrogen vehicle because it’s basically like running on an atom bomb.”

Honda fuel cell marketing specialist Steve Ellis rolls his eyes when he
hears comments like that. The Cold War-era hydrogen bomb comes to mind
for people because it’s one of the few times they’ve heard the word
“hydrogen” used in conversation. Another time is when people talk
about the hydrogen-filled blimp, the Hindenburg. Ellis wants to
clear the air about the Hindenburg disaster.
The huge zeppelin burst into flames, and a lot of people blame the hydrogen:

“But history has now shown that it was the coating, the covering of the
material that actually was sustaining the fire. The hydrogen itself of
course being flammable, whatever that cause was, it did ignite. But
the flame was sustained by the coating. That’s what people see.”

Ellis says hydrogen has gotten a bad rap:

“When in reality, science has proven that it wasn’t the guilty party.”

(Grant:) “But it is a very flammable substance?”

(Ellis:) “Sure. As is gasoline.”

There’s still controversy over whether the hydrogen or the coating
caused the Hindenburg to burn. Regardless. Many energy experts say
hydrogen is more flammable then gasoline, but Ellis says the dangers of
a hydrogen fire aren’t any worse then a gasoline fire, they’re just
different.

He says people are used to dealing with liquid gas at the fueling
station. But in some ways, hydrogen could be considered less dangerous
then gas. When gas spills it pools up on the ground, and if someone
drops a cigarette – yipes! – it could be a long day for firefighters.

But hydrogen goes into cars in gaseous form. If there’s a hydrogen
leak, Ellis says it’d be easy to put out a fire:

“So with, you know, fire systems at the station, if there’s any
detection of a flame or any incident like that, as soon as the source
is shut off, the fire’s out, it’s gone. First responders and many fire
departments have said they feel like responding to a hydrogen fire…
it’s like, by the time they’ll get there, they’ll be nothing to put out.
It’ll likely have taken care of itself.”

That’s one advantage of using a light-weight fuel like hydrogen: it
dissipates quickly into the air because it’s lighter then air. But
because it’s so light, each cubic foot doesn’t pack that much energy.
That’s why cars can’t store that much hydrogen in the tank.

Hydrogen-expert Paul Erickson says that low energy content also creates
other safety problems. Erickson is director of the Hydrogen Production
and Utilization Lab at University of California-Davis. In order to
make cars that hold enough hydrogen to travel a respectable distance
between re-fuelings, he says they have to use a lot of pressure to
squeeze enough hydrogen into a tank:

“It’s just very difficult to get the range out that you’d like. And so you
end up having to pressurize the hydrogen to 3,000, now we’re up to
5,000, now up to 10,000 pounds per square inch. I wouldn’t want to sit
on a 10,000 psi tank of anything, much less hydrogen.”

Erickson says car companies understand the dangers of combining
hydrogen’s high flammability with high pressure in the tanks. They
don’t want any hydrogen to escape from the tank if there’s a collision
and they don’t want the tank to blow up. So, the tank is probably the
strongest component on the hydrogen vehicles being built today.

That’s not the case with regular gas cars. Steve Ellis at Honda says
they won’t release too many consumer vehicles to start. One reason is
to slowly get people used to handling hydrogen safely.

Lots of people in the automotive industry expect hydrogen to be a major
fuel source in the future. Cars that run on hydrogen don’t emit
greenhouse gases from the tailpipe. In fact, they don’t emit anything
except water. It might sound like magic, but there are some costs to
fueling the future on hydrogen. Julie Grant reports:
http://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/grant_030507.mp3

Transcript

Lots of people in the automotive industry expect hydrogen to be a major
fuel source in the future. Cars that run on hydrogen don’t emitgreenhouse gases from the tailpipe. In fact, they don’t emit anything
except water. It might sound like magic, but there are some costs to
fueling the future on hydrogen. Julie Grant reports:

There are a lot of young guys checking out the hybrid cars on display at
this exhibit. Sales associate Chris Beckham is putting on his tie as
he walks over to the sleek, futuristic cars Honda hopes to lease to
consumers as soon as next year:

“It’s a fuel cell-powered vehicle. It runs on hydrogen. The only
emissions it has is water. So, it’s a really great vehicle for the
environment.”

Beckham hopes he gets a chance to lease one:

“What do you think, are you ready to drive one of these?”

“Absolutely. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these. If you ever get thirsty,
just stand behind the car with a cup.”

Most cars available today, even those that run on alternative fuels,
still emit at least one kind of pollution: carbon dioxide.

David Robillard and his two sons are looking at cars at this exhibit.
He’s worked at Ford Motor Company for 36 years. He thinks hydrogen
will be the long-term energy solution because it doesn’t emit any pollution
from the tailpipe:

“All leaders in market going to try to be first in that segment, and I think
it’s going to be huge. I think 10-15 years from now, it’s going to be a
revolutionary mass transportation system that we have.”

That’s music to Steve Ellis’s ears. He’s Honda’s manager of fuel cell
marketing and says there’s a need to transition from an oil-based
transportation system to hydrogen. Ellis says hydrogen will be a
cleaner alternative:

“Only hydrogen offers the opportunity to have zero carbon emissions from
the vehicle – zero CO2 emisssions AND zero CO2 emissions from the
fuel.”

Ellis sees research and development of hydrogen cars as a noble goal.
But not everyone thinks hydrogen is going to be the climate change savior:

“From one standpoint, I think it’s great. From another standpoint, I
think we also need to check other options as well.”

Paul Erickson is a leader of hydrogen research at the University of
California at Davis. He’s director of the school’s Hydrogen Production
and Utilization lab. Erickson remembers curling up on the couch as a kid, his lungs burning from all
the ozone pollution in southern California, and he wanted to clean up the
air. But he doesn’t think hydrogen is the best solution that’s
currently available:

“There may be other options that are not as say, politically saavy, but
are options that from a technological standpoint make a lot more
sense.”

It takes energy to create the hydrogen used to run a car. With today’s
technology, that energy is almost always natural gas, but it could be
any fossil fuel. Erickson says those cars don’t reduce energy use or
pollution:

“You’re taking, let’s say some fuel – that could be coal, that could be
any type of energy source – and you convert that energy into hydrogen
and you ship that to the user… it gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling
saying I’m not part of the problem. But you know what? All you’re doing is
shifting that pollution upstream.”

Some engineers say that’s not necessarily a bad thing – that it would
be easier to control pollution coming from a few power plants than
from the millions of cars emitting greenhouse gases today. But Honda’s
Steve Ellis says hydrogen cars don’t create as much pollution as gas-powered vehicles. Even though nearly all of them need fossil fuels to
produce the hydrogen:

“Even with that method of doing it, we have over 50% reduction when you
factor in in wheel-to-well emissions compared with today’s gasoline cars.”

(Grant:) “50% cleaner?”

“50% CO2 reduction.”

Ellis says hydrogen can be made using renewable fuel sources such as
solar, ethanol, and methanol, but so far it’s not cost-effective. In
the meantime, Honda and other companies expect to start producing some
consumer model hydrogen cars that use fossil fuels in the next few
years.

Transcript

Advertisers like to push your hot buttons. One of them is your
attraction to nature. Car companies use our love of the great outdoors
to sell some of the most gas-guzzling and polluting vehicles around.
Kyle Norris takes a look at how car ads work:

Have you ever noticed that car commercials have a lot of nature in
them? The car that’s being sold is always climbing up a boulder or
ripping through the mud. Like this commercial:

(Commerical:) “The new Jeep Liberty Renegade…”

A Native-American looking man drives over some rugged terrain when he comes
across a seal stranded on the ice.

(Commercial:) “It gives you the power to conquer nature…”

As he approached the seal and raised a harpoon over his head, you
thought he was going to hurt the seal.

(Commercial:) “…as well as the ability to protect it.” (chirping and hooting)

Instead, he plunges a hole in the ice and another seal pops out its
head to be reunited with the first. Then the commercial ends with
the sound of chirping crickets and the hoot of an owl.

But listen to that announcer one more time:

(Commercial:) “It gives you the power to conquer nature as well as the
ability to protect it.”

Over the next decade, Generation Y will be elbowing out the Baby
Boomers in the marketplace. So you’ll be seeing fewer commercials about
conquering nature and more about protecting it.

Here’s why that’s happening: according to researchers, Generation Y
cares strongly for the environment and they’re willing put their money
where their mouth is. Whereas Boomers theoretically care they’re a lot less
willing to financially back that concern.

But for everyone, nature speaks to something inside us. And advertisers
know this. Art Spinelli is the president of CNW Research:

“Well, for the most part, most consumers have an enormous response to
natural settings, whether it’s the agrarian part of just human nature
or human beings.”

He calls this response a hot button. Spinelli says advertisers use it
to sell everything from beer to cars.

“…And it plays off of a really instinctive basic attitude that a lot
of consumers have. Kind of like going on vacation to somewhere and
looking around and going, gee, I could really live here. This would be
terrific but the reality is that I have a job and it happens to be in
an urban or suburban environment and I can’t leave that to live in the
desert.”

Car salespeople will also tell you we have this nature hot button. They
say it’s all about knowing you could drive in the rugged
wilderness if you needed to. Here’s a car salesman who goes
simply by the name of Mike:

“They want to be able to know they can do it um, but it doesn’t
happen. They never do it. I think I had an Explorer once myself,
and the most off-roading – it was in the wintertime – and I think
I went on the sidewalk or something. That was the most off-roading I ever did.”

So what are people actually doing with their vehicles? Is it anything
like the commercials? Well, it’s not just about conquering mountain tops:

(Consumer 1:) “I’m driving a Toyota 4-Runner. I need something to tow my boat and I was
looking for a quality car.”

(Consumer 2:) “Part of the reason I brought a little SUV is I like to sit up high and the SUV
can really offer the height.”

(Consumer 3:) “I don’t actually go off-roading with it. I can get away for weekends and
pack a load of gear. I can tow a light trailer. It’s just a good all-around sport utility vehicle.”

(Consumer 4:) “I’ve helped friends move before and all the seats, the entire back folds down and
I can fit a whole full mattress in the back.”

So, turns out most people aren’t mud bogging on a regular basis, but it’s
important to them to have the option to mud bog. And advertisers are
hip to this desire. Car buyers can keep this fantasy alive as long as
they’re willing to fork over some serious cash for the price of the
vehicle and the cost of gas.

Car salesmen say the number one thing buyers ask them about is money, as in
how much will I have to spend. They say potential buyers never
ask them about off-roading or driving through nature, but they know that inkling is there.